


When I Said “I Do” I Didn’t Mean This!

by SuperfriendlyFox



Series: Pig in a Blanket on the Bed [2]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Domestic, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Getting a Pet, Humor, Kid Fic, Light Angst, Mild Sexual Content, SuperCorp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 13:46:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12367041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperfriendlyFox/pseuds/SuperfriendlyFox
Summary: Lena had no idea what she was in for.





	When I Said “I Do” I Didn’t Mean This!

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to Charlotte's Web of Guilt and Good Girlfriendship, but works as a standalone as well. Hope you enjoy. :D

There are screams, horrible screams, accompanied by drilling, like construction workers with jackhammers at the dentist’s without anesthesia. Lena’s reaching out, reaching out for help, but Supergirl just can’t get there in time.

Because Supergirl’s being crushed to death, crushed to death by Lena’s armpit, and-- oh, Supergirl’s her wife, her lovely wife in bed snoring in that adorably loud way of hers, her nose smushed up against Lena’s boob. Those aren’t the screams of the undead giving birth after all, it’s just their new baby crying, thank God. It was just a dream, a horrible, nasty, brutish--

Their new baby crying!!! Lena awakens just as Kara, spent superhero, hauls herself up-- “Babe, it’s my turn,” mumbling like Death threw up multiple times in her mouth.

Lena coos, “Darling, I’ve got her, you’re wiped out,” expecting Kara to insist, gallantly, on taking her turn...

Kara drops like a rock back onto her pillow, leaving Lena to fend for herself.

Lena shoves Cat’s butt out of her face, somehow able to _feel_ him judging her, and-- “Punkie, move please, _yes_ I can hear the baby crying, that’s why I need you to _move,”_ finally maneuvering past their scruffy dog, and now Charlotte is waddling over from the edge of the bed, squealing and worriedly wiggling her tail, and the crying gets louder and Minnie is squeaking and Rover runs in barking from the baby’s room, and here comes Comet dashing in as well-- _“I know!”_ \-- and finally Lena manages to get her feet on the floor, just narrowly missing tripping over Alfred’s lithe body-- _Whew! That was a close one!_ \-- as he slinks underfoot.

Only to trip over the turtle.

Lena lands with a loud _THUMP!_ \--that somehow still isn’t loud enough to wake her wife who’s once more (selfishly) dead to the world-- and just then their four-year-old runs in screaming bloody murder-- which admittedly sounds _extremely_ attractive to Lena right now-- trampling her on his way to clamber up the bedspread and snuggle with his superhero mommy and their billion zillion kajillion pets.

Lena picks herself up, as usual, and staggers to the baby’s room.

*****

Lena pads back into their bedroom, holding the baby to her chest. Patting her back gently and humming, Lena smiles, as Betty’s cries subside into soft sighs.

Just to see their son Jack sitting on the bed in a makeshift fort he’s created with pillows and animals, and tufts of hair that used to belong to some of those animals, and _where is he hiding the scissors?_

“Jackie, time for bed. You’re a big boy now, you need to sleep in your own bed.” Lena scans the surrounding area and plucks Kara’s art scissors-- _Thank God, the blunt ones_ \-- from the space between the Star Wars throw and Kara’s nose.

“’on’t wanna.”

“I get that you don’t _want_ to, but you _have_ to, Jackie.”

 _“Can’t_ sleep, Mummy.”

Lena sighs, sitting on the bed with Betty and giving her son _the look_.

“Can’t sleep without story, Mummy.”

“You had a bedtime story before you went to bed. Let’s go.”

“Want story of Charlotte an’ Punkie an’ Minnie an’ Alfre’ an’--”

 _Not again._ Lena groans. “Jackie, you’ve heard that story four hundred sixty-seven times, I know because I keep track of it on my tablet. You must be sick of hearing it. I’m sick of telling it. I was sick of it _while the story was actually happening to me.”_

Jack folds his arms over his chest, and he looks so much like Lena when he does that she doesn’t know whether to kiss him or smother him _now,_ before he grows up to stage a hostile takeover of her company.

“Fine. It all started when Mommy moved in with Mummy and Mommy wanted a pet, and Mummy thought it would earn her major brownie points to let her have one.”

“What brownie points?”

“Brownie points are when you let your girlfriend keep the pet pig she brought home from an adoption event she told you she was getting a dog or a cat at. So that’s how Charlotte became part of our family.”

“How Har--”

 _“Cat_ came into our lives unfortunately because Mummy was a huge idiot, thinking Mommy would let Mummy give Charlotte away. To a better home, I might add, with lots of room, and soil, and other pigs to play with--”

Jack ignores this useless information. “An’ Punk--”

Lena tries to hurry this along. “Punkie was found in an alleyway, plotting for Mommy to find him.”

“Min--”

“Minnie was the unlucky victim of a hoarding situation, which is when someone completely out of their mind gets lots and lots of pets-- in this case rats-- they can’t possibly take care of in the slightest.” Lena glances down at the pig and the cats and the dogs and the rat, and the turtle bopping her ankle, and wonders how in the world she morphed into a pet hoarder without even knowing it.

“Al--”

“Mommy saw Alfred on the Petfinder site, which she lied to Mummy about never ever going on, and had just finished working with Uncle Bruce on an important thing and _thought_ it would be funny to have a tuxedo cat named Alfred.”

“An’ Rov--”

“Rover was the abused dog of a bad man Mommy helped put in jail, and Mommy felt sorry for Rover and twisted Mummy’s arm.”

“What twiste’?”

“You’ll find out when you start dating. And then we got Comet, as you know, because by then we had Betty and apparently it’s like _Oprah_ around here. “You get a dog! _You_ get a dog! _Everybody gets a dog!”_

Jack counts on his fingers. “You nee’ a ‘og too, Mummy.”

“Baby. They’re _all_ my dogs. Sadly.” She reaches out and softly strokes Punkie's fur as he sighs in his sleep.

“An’ Turt--”

“Turtle I can’t even explain, I was drunk at the time and woke up to a hangover and a turtle crawling across the floor. I never asked Mommy because I had promised to quit drinking so much.”

“What ‘runk?”

“It’s what people do to cope with the person they’re dating, or married to. You’ll find out someday, too.”

Lena’s now on this train of thought on to the next station, explaining how Jack should protect himself from lying, manipulative, pet-obsessed gorgeous women, and by the time she’s done with the four hundred sixty-seventh re-telling of the sad story of how her prim and pristine books-and-wine life somehow, without her knowledge or consent, mutated into the life of a circus employee who was just there to date the cute lion tamer, Jack is sound asleep, slumped against his still storing mom (he must have super _bad_ hearing), with dogs and cats and a pig and a rat draped over and around him, and just generally content with the world as he knows it.

With the dumb turtle now nudging Lena’s toe, asking to be picked up and placed in the middle of things. (Which she does. Because that’s her damn job, to do everything everyone and their furry buddies want around here, apparently.)

Lena sighs. Jack _knew_ this would happen, he _planned_ it this way, so he could come sleep in _their_ bed with them and stay there all night, because he’s super smart, and she would be proud of him if it didn’t mean yet another morning of no quickie at all before the baby started crying and all hell broke loose.

Lena goes into the nursery to put Betty down, and returns to try and wiggle her way somewhere in the vicinity of her wife’s warm arm.

Her wife who started this whole furry mess.

Lena recalls her response to Kara when they got back from their honeymoon (”Kids? Uh, sure, Kara, anything you want.” _It can’t get any worse than this sorry mess we’ve got going on.)_ and could fling herself out the window.

Except Kara would catch her. No way she’d consent to being a single parent.

Damn it.

*****

Lena steps out of the elevator, her first day back at L-Corp instead of working at home, and Jess nearly trips over her desk in her haste to ~~welcome her back~~ gush over Betty, snuggled in her baby carrier against Lena’s chest, and ask when Charlotte will next be coming ‘round for a visit.

*****

Kara, meanwhile, drops Jack off at preschool (”Don’t you _dare_ fly him, Kara.”), then totes the dogs to the DEO, where she will drop them off in the Canine Room with Alex and Maggie’s pup. Kara and Alex take turns walking them in between their DEO, CatCo, and Supergirl duties, occasionally finding J’onn playing with them.

“I finished my rounds. The city’s quiet.” Kara comes into J’onn’s office to find the dogs in there with him, or, actually, all over him as they wrestle.

J’onn picks himself up from the floor, trying to still look dignified. “Wrestling is a right brain activity so sometimes when I need to think more creatively about a problem...”

Kara sniggers. “Uh-huh.”

“Anyhow... Might I ask when you will next be bringing Charlotte over for a visit?”

*****

Back at home, they take the kids and the pets out for their evening walk, with the dogs taking turns riding on Charlotte’s back, Cat and Minnie stacked on top of whichever dog is on the pig at the moment. (Alfred likes to stay home and spoon with Turtle. Freak.) Lena has long since gotten used to the stares they receive, and the hordes of little kids who converge on them at the park.

Happy at least that Jack has friends, and will never be lonely like her.

*****

“So,” whispers Kara as Lena is slipping into sleep. “I brought Alfred in for his appointment and there was a pit bull in the shelter that’d been there a _long_ time and... Lena. Lena, are you asleep?”

_No, I’m praying for the strength to put my foot down for once._

“Oh I just heard your heartbeat and breathing pick up, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb when you were so close. But you know how pitties have an undeserved reputation and it’s just not fair, and even though it’s a no-kill shelter, Lena, I met him, and he’s very sweet--”

_I’m dreaming, this is just another nasty, brutish, horrible dream, I just need to snap myself out of it--_

“--and, you know, I took Jack with me to Alfred’s appointment and he kind of met Wally too? Oh that’s not the name the shelter gave him, it’s the one Jack picked out, and--”

Lena groans. “Was Oprah at the shelter, too?”

“Yes! Omigosh, have you been there without telling me? Oprah, that sweet little kitten and her sister Gayle, and-- Lena, stop playing with your pillow like that, you could accidentally suffocate-- of course we don’t need to keep those names if you don’t want, just, they’re sisters and they’re bonded so of course they have to be taken together, and--”

“Kara. I understand about Wally if Jack’s already named him.” _Why can I never stand up to my wife and son? Is it because Lillian wouldn’t let me keep that frog when I was six? Don’t_ ever _tell Kara that story or she’ll insist on finding a frog that needs adopting._ “But about the kittens, um... don’t you think Alex and Maggie’s dog could use a furry friend? Or two?”

“Oh,” whispers Kara. “Oh wow. I never thought of that, how selfish of me to want to keep them all for us. And oh, Alex’s birthday is coming up--”

“Mmm.” Lena sighs and settles down onto her pillow. _I’m not the only one who should have to suffer at the hands of Kara Luthor-Danvers._

*****

They get the new dog. They introduce the new dog. The new dog is shy at first, but is quickly taken under Punkie, Rover, and Comet’s wings. And Charlotte is lovely, and Minnie squeaks hello, and Alfred rubs against Wally’s leg, and Turtle crawls over as well. Cat is sweet, as usual, to everyone but Lena. Jack restrains himself from pulling out the scissors. Lena shows Wally the baby and he puts his paw in her tiny fingers, to which Kara exclaims, “He knows tricks!” and Lena can’t help smiling.

That night Lena places a sleeping Betty into her crib. Lena steps back, content, only to see her son scaling the crib wall-- _Did they switch our sperm with Spiderman’s?_ \-- and dropping down next to his sister.

“Jackie, sweetie, I know you love your sister but I _just_ got her to go to sleep, _please_ don’t wa-- ”

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

Lena holds her head in her hands, but only for a moment, before pulling her son out of the crib and reaching back in for her woken, wailing daughter.

Kara swoops in and takes the baby from Lena-- “Oh oh, Betty Boo, don’t cry--” and carries her into their bedroom, Jack trooping happily behind.

“Oh _no,_ Jackie, it’s bedtime for _you,_ boy-o.” Lena marches into the bedroom after him, intending to assert her authority.

Twenty minutes later Lena looks down at her overflowing bed, with her sleeping wife and their somehow still growing brood of furbabies and semi-human babies, with Wally, _her_ dog (as decreed by her son), smushed happily in the middle of this mess. Lena sighs. She never wanted kids. She never wanted _pets._ She just wanted her ridiculously sexy, ridiculously sweet, ridiculously lovely girlfriend, who unfortunately wanted the pets and the kids _(and_ Lena, thank God).

Lena was just so much of a goner she _even_ would’ve helplessly surrendered to having a snake in the house, or a tarantula (but _why,_ Kara?), or whatever Jurassic Park reject Kara had brought home that night long ago, and she thanks the lucky rabbit’s feet on all the living and breathing rabbits out there that Kara hadn’t thought to call Lena’s bluff.

And that Kara hasn’t brought home a rabbit.

So really, what’s one more dog in the grand scheme of things? Lena sighs, and tucks a smiling Wally in.

*****

They’d thought things would get easier when Betty started sleeping through the night. They hadn’t anticipated Jack’s increased need for attention.

Lena sits reading, in the only place she gets a moment to herself nowadays.

“Mummy!” Jack bangs on the door. “You okay? You been in the bathroom a long time!”

“Jackie, honey, I love you and your sister and your mommy more than anything on Earth, but go away, please.”

“An’ Punkie an’ Minnie an’--”

“Yes, them too,” says Lena, and turns the page.

But the banging and the “Mummy!”s continue, and now she can see the shadows of eyeballs in the crack under the door, as well as a paw or two. _Why does Cat only ever want to spend time with me when I’m in the bathroom?_ And now her son is shoving Minnie under the door, for reconnaissance purposes probably. Lena bends and palms Minnie and deposits the rat in her sweater pocket. Minnie seems perfectly content to nibble on Lena’s sweater fuzz, and Lena turns back to her book, featuring a heroine with no kids who thinks _she_ has it tough. At the rate Lena’s going she’ll be an old lady, sitting in the bathroom still reading the same book, probably with a hamster or gerbil or two in her pocket.

At least it’s a good book.

The eyeballs disappear and Jack tries to break down the door. Lena smirks, grateful she’d thought to install red sunlamps in the hall today.

Last night Jack, in his urgency to get to his moms, left a cartoonish body-shaped hole in the bedroom door...

_“Just look what your son did,” she seethed, after Jack had been comforted over his bad dream and read seven million stories to coax him back to sleep._

“My _son?” her wife said, and placed her hands over Jack’s ears, as though his super hearing worked when he was out cold as well._

“That _definitely didn’t come from_ my _DNA.” Lena threw back the covers and slid in next to her super, super-annoying son._

 _“You were the one who insisted we put my eggs in your womb so the kids could be_ both _of ours,” said Kara. “I would have been perfectly fine with having no biological connection to our kids whatsoever. Family is made from love, not--”_

_“I agree.” Lena sighed. “I made a big mistake.”_

_“A mistake?” Kara’s eyes were as wide as plates._

_“I just... this isn’t what I thought I was signing up for, Kara.” Lena picked at the comforter._

_“What did you think you were signing up for?” Kara asked, monumental hurt in her voice._

_“I... I’m sorry darling, I didn’t mean it like that.”_

_“What did you mean by that if not those exact words?” Kara looked like she was about to cry._

_“Kara...” Lena thought, not for the first time, what a big dumb dolt she truly was._

_“No, tell me. I thought we were communicating pretty well but I guess we haven’t been.”_

_“It’s after midnight, Kara, and we both have work--”_

_“No-- you always do this. You always shove the really hard talks aside and then act like you forgot about it. This is important for us, Lena.”_

_Lena took a deep breath and looked Kara straight in the eye. “I didn’t_ want _kids. I didn’t want_ pets. _I just wanted you, Kara.”_

_“Oh,” Kara whispered. “I thought you did, I thought you wanted-- I mean, I thought you were just scared.”_

_Lena didn’t know what else to say, or how to take back what she’d said._

_“Are you sorry we had Jack and Betty?” Kara asked in a way like she was afraid to know the answer._

_“No! Of course not, Kara. I_ love _them. I just...” She sighed, and hated herself. “I’m overwhelmed a lot of the time.”_

_“Yeah.” Kara looked down at the comforter, as if it could offer her some real comfort._

_“I’m sorry, Kara.” And she was. She was the one who should be comforting her wife, not a damn bedspread. She was the one who shouldn’t have hurt her wife and caused her to need comforting in the first place. She reached out to touch Kara--_

_“No, it’s fine.” Kara shook her head. “We’re both pretty tired. Maybe we_ should _talk about it tomorrow.”_

_And as Lena held Kara as she held Jack as they tried to fall asleep, Lena knew they wouldn’t talk about it again._

_And she worried she may have said something they wouldn’t be able to come back from._

_“I’m really sorry, Kara,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I love you. I love Jack and I love Betty. I even sometimes feel some affection for the--”_

_But Kara was already asleep._

_*****_

_Kara came home to find the bedroom door replaced, as if last night was just a bad dream. Lena stood on a stepladder, wiring a red sunlamp to the hallway ceiling._

_“That was fast.”_

_Lena plucked screws from her mouth. “You know I like to handle things right away.”_

_“Material things, maybe.”_

_“Kara--”_

_But Kara was gone._

_Lena sighed. She knew she was the guilty party here, but using super speed was just cheating._

*****

Two days of frost have glacially gone by. Lena hopes the cold spell will end tonight. She misses her warm wife terribly.

Uncle James comes over to ~~be tortured~~ baby-sit so Lena and Kara can go on their weekly "date." Lena turns on an afterthought on their way out. “Oh, and James, remember, no ice cream. Jack had ice cream twice this week already.”

“You got it. You’re the boss. No ice cream it is.” James nods as Kara waves and Lena closes the door.

James gazes at Betty in the playpen, then turns back to Jack clambering onto his knee, and whispers, “How’re my little sperm babies doing?”

“What sperm?” asks Jack.

“Uh, sorry, I forgot about the super hearing. No need to tell your moms that, right?”

Jack folds his arms over his chest, glaring at James.

James sighs. “Ice cream it is.”

*****

The hotel clerk gives them a wink, because they come here every week, but fails to notice from their demeanors that something’s off.

The room service attendant _does,_ because while normally Lena enjoys a few glasses of wine without guilt, tonight she doesn’t order any, as a peace offering to Kara.

But Kara still doesn’t say a word to her.

Kara sits stiff as a board, looking at her food, the ceiling, the label of the sparkling cider Lena ordered, at anything but Lena.

Lena sighs. She can’t take Kara’s passive aggressiveness one more minute, it’s infinitely more painful than actually expressing her feelings. “Kara, we need to talk about the other night.”

Kara finally looks at her. “Really? You’re going to ruin date night, the only thing you look forward to all week?”

Lena’s jaw clenches. “That’s not fair, Kara.”

“No,” Kara agrees, softening. “It’s not.”

Lena places her hand on the table, reaching out, and Kara takes it.

“I’m truly sorry for what I said, Kara. It came out all wrong and I didn’t mean it.”

“What did you mean, then?”

It’s Lena’s turn to look down. “We haven’t been properly communicating, and that’s my fault. I... I’ve been dishonest with you from the start.”

“Oh?” Kara’s eyes widen, and her breathing picks up.

Lena swallows, having never told Kara the truth. “It started when I couldn’t tell you how I felt about you, because I didn’t believe you felt the same. I was afraid you wouldn’t want to be my friend anymore if I was honest.”

“Lena?”

Lena lets out an awkward laugh. “If your busybody sister hadn’t shoved us in the bathroom that night and barricaded the door, with threats to take away all our Monopoly money if we didn’t kiss, I... I’d probably still be pining over my best friend.”

“Oh Lena.” All of Kara’s anger has seeped out of her, transformed by some weird alchemy into tears. “You hate to lose at Monopoly.”

Lena laughs, but with mirth this time.

Kara wipes at her eyes. “You never told me you had a thing for me before? You acted like that bathroom kiss was what made you like me.”

Lena blushes, and blinks back her own tears. “Yeah, well, people don’t tend to want to be with unconfident people, so...” She takes a deep breath. “And then when we got together, I thought if I was honest about not wanting kids, or _pets,_ even, that you would leave me.”

 _“Lena._ I wouldn’t have. Sure I would have been disappointed, but, I could have made do with being an aunt, that’s--”

“That’s the thing, Kara. I didn’t _want_ you to have to make do. I wanted you to have-- I wanted to _give_ you all the things you wanted.”

“I wanted _you,_ Lena.”

Lena smiles and squeezes Kara’s hand. “You know I love you and the kids more than anything. I would do anything for you, and for them.”

“I would do anything for you, too.” Kara looks down at her plate. “Do... do you want to give away some of the animals? I know I get a bit carried away sometimes.”

“That’s not what I’m saying. I could never do that to Jack. It was hard enough when I made you give away Charlotte that time.”

Kara smiles at the memory. “I guess I acted a bit childish about that.”

“A bit.” Lena grins. “But you loved her, so...”

“But... you don’t?”

“I do, Kara. I love Charlotte and Punkie and Minnie and please don’t make me run down the laundry list of our animals. Especially Cat.”

Kara giggles. “For once I’d like to hear you call him by his name.”

“Never. Never will I besmirch such a wonderful part of my childhood by associating it with that feline punk.”

Kara laughs. “Too bad I didn’t think of the name ‘Punkie’ when we got Har--”

 _“Don’t,_ Kara.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s just a lot, Kara. It’s exhausting. ‘No more ice cream, don’t stuff crayons up your sister’s nose, I don’t care if she likes it,’ it’s always _me,_ Kara. I’m tired of being the heavy around here while you get to be fun mom.”

“Jack loves you just as much, Lena, you know that. He doesn’t think of you as bad mom.”

“Still it’s not fun for me, Kara. I like to be fun mom, too. I need a little more help from you in the discipline department.”

Kara nods vigorously, obviously meaning well. “No, of course.”

“And maybe next time I wig out and have a bit of a meltdown, please don’t take it to heart. I don’t mean it. I’m _happy.”_

Kara beams. “You are?’

“Yeah. _Almost_ all the time.” Lena smiles again. “Although maybe you could throw in a bonus date night here and there?”

“I would love to throw you around in bonus date nights.”

Kara smirks, and Lena raises an eyebrow.

*****

Lena pins Kara to the bed with glee. They start to have sex, in one of the few places they can without Cat staring at them like a pervert.

Lena’s face lights up. “Let’s _pretend_ we don’t have children!”

Kara blinks. “What are children?”

Lena smirks and kisses Kara’s jaw. “Let’s pretend we don’t have pets!”

“Pets? Ew. Who would want those?” Kara giggles, then yelps as Lena nips at her thigh. Lena shifts, kisses her, and runs her nails down her back.

*****

After their talk Lena finds herself on a high.

All right, after their talk _and_ the amazing sex, Lena finds herself on a high. She thinks perhaps nothing might ever bring her down from it-- even James, after his goodbye hug, looks at her like he suspects she's been smoking something.

Humming, she steps into the kitchen, to find Jack actually helping for once, without even having been asked, dutifully placing something in the-- “Jack James Winslow Luthor-Danvers, take your sister out of the trash bin _this instant,”_ she says, in a voice she normally reserves for her impending coronary.

Jack reluctantly re-opens the plastic garbage bag and drags out an arm. “But Mummy, we were playing.”

“That’s all well and good, Jackie.” Lena thrusts her hands inside whatever muck is inside there to pull out her daughter, who looks like she’s having a grand old time impersonating a piece of trash. “But you know how comatose I and your mommy get at the end of the day, and if we were to accidentally leave your sister curbside for even _ten minutes,_ she could attract a raccoon, or a bear, or--”

Jack’s eyes light up.

“We are _not_ getting a raccoon or a bear,” Lena protests.

“Please, Mummy--”

“Kara!” Lena collapses onto the kitchen floor, with her daughter crawling over her, babbling, “Raccoo! Beah!”

“We’re getting a raccoon and a bear!” Jack whoops, and Lena heaves open the bottom cabinet, desperately hoping she’d had the good sense to leave just one bottle of wine there for emergencies.

*****

Betty starts stringing words into sentences early for her age, and Lena is so proud. She has such precocious children. She’s thrilled, thrilled until she actually has to start having actual conversations with yet another miniature person with a mind and will of her own.

“Did you got all the anmals thea when you got maweed, Mummy?”

“Did we _have_ all the animals there,” Lena corrects her. “And no, of course not,” she says without thinking, and laughs, because she’s uncommonly stupid that way. “Can you _imagine_ a pig at a wedding?”

Apparently Betty _can,_ because she plunks herself down on the floor and starts bawling.

Lena is horrified, horrified that Kara trusts her to stay home alone with the kids ever. “Oh nonononono Betty baby, everything’s all right, Mummy was _joking!_ Of _course_ we should have Charlotte at our next wedding!”

“Punkie and Minnie and--”

“Yes yes, all of those!” Lena nods agreeably, relieved that tears have been replaced by lights in her daughter’s eyes, picking her up and rocking her against her chest.

That night Lena starts off their how-the-day-went talk with, “Kara, honey, um... I think maybe we should renew our vows? I might’ve promised Betty some things...”

*****

So Lena and Kara renew their vows, and even though it’s a nice ceremony in their backyard it feels like getting re-married inside a barn.

Jack is the ring bearer, Betty the flower girl. (”Don’t eat those, Betty, you’ll ruin your appetite for ice cream cake later.”) The kids delight in the tiny tuxes and gowns the pets sport, and Alex uses the occasion to _once again_ thank Lena for her helpful suggestion about those kittens long ago. (If Alex doesn’t quit it Lena’s going to sic some puppies on her, too.) Turtle is placed in his kiddie pool under the hammock in the shade to enjoy the slightly insane festivities. Even Lillian is there, on loan from the maximum security prison, because Lena just couldn’t resist watching her mom squirm at her daughter’s (re)marriage to an alien, recoil in disgust when Punkie farted in front of her, and screech in horror when Minnie leaped off Punkie to land in her hair.

Later Lena takes a moment to herself, well, with Turtle, softly running her finger under his chin. She watches the scene in the backyard with amazement, and in slight awe of how they got here, wondering if her advice to her younger self would be to run, or to relax and enjoy it.

Charlotte waddles over to her, as she's watching Betty bounce happily on Lillian's knee, cradled against Lillian's hands, which are still chained together.

Lena tickles the pig under her chin. Charlotte squeals happily.

“I’m with you, Charlotte, sometimes I wish it was still just you and me and mommy again.”

Charlotte grunts, and wiggles her tail.

“No, you’re right, I wouldn’t want to erase Jack and Betty for anything. And as much as I complain about the furry interlopers in my life... remember that time someone managed to break into our house during the night?”

More grunts and squeals now as Lena scratches behind Charlotte’s ears.

“I woke up to the commotion wondering what our should-be-illegal zoo was up to _now,_ but there were you and Rover holding the robber down, and Punkie was licking his face half off. And then Cat shoved Punkie aside-- I thought it was Cat being his usual jerk self-- but then he goes and pees on the perp’s face. And Minnie nibbling on a glove, trying to pull it off so she could chew off his fingernails I suppose, and even Turtle was coming to help, I saw him crawling down the hall...”

Charlotte grunts again, and seems to bob her head, but that could be the champagne talking.

“I know, poor Turtle, right? Maybe I should build him some mini roller skates so he can keep up with the rest of you.” _Okay, now I_ know _I’ve had too much champagne._

Charlotte roots in Lena’s armpit and she laughs.

Glad she didn’t run after all.

*****

“I said no ice cream and that’s final, Jackie.”

They’ve had a late dinner, the kids (and Kara) had ice cream two _(!)_ nights ago, and they all had lollipops after the doctor’s this afternoon (Lena swears the doctor and dentist are in cahoots, and plans to kill them). Lena doesn’t feel like bad mom at the moment, in fact she feels quite good about her current role as Reasonable, Sane, Slightly Self-Righteous and Beleaguered Mom Who Has Absolutely No Intention Of Backing Down This Time.

Jack crosses his arms over his chest and glares at his mum.

Lena crosses _her_ arms over her chest and glares at her son.

Kara picks up Betty and leaves the house with her, whispering, _“That’s_ probably going to take a while. Let’s _you and I_ get ice cream.”

They return in an hour to find Jack and Lena in the exact same positions they were in before, looking like they’ve not even breathed since Kara and Betty left. Except, Lena has the beginnings of a smirk on her face, triumphant in her imminent win, as it’s almost bedtime.

Jack screams, “Betty got ice cream!”

Lena turns on Kara, who looks caught like a deer in headlights, a very guilty deer that’s been eating ice cream, and even though it’s licked itself and its fawn clean attempting to hide the evidence, Jack of course has super smell and isn’t fooled in the slightest.

And starts crying.

Lena almost rips the freezer door off its hinges in her panic, because Jack has never cried about _anything._

Which of course leads Betty to start sobbing at the sight of Jack eating ice cream without her, even though she just had some without _him,_ so Lena has to let her eat more, and then of course _Kara_ digs in, and then the barking dogs and the meowing cats and the grunting pig and the squeaking rat-- luckily Turtle is still crawling somewhere in the hallway, because she hasn’t quite gotten around to those roller skates yet-- and what will she do when the kids start flying, and using their super speed to get ice cream out of the freezer without her knowing, and Lena slumps down onto the dining table in tears, because _how_ did this become her life?

“Please don’t cry, babe.” Kara nudges her spoon against Lena’s lips. “Here, have some ice cream!”

And Lena lets her mouth droop open in utter surrender, allowing Kara to shovel ice cream into it, because she just _can’t_ anymore.

None of this was in the girlfriend-to-wife manual and someone should really update that.

That night Lena decides it’s time to have another talk with her wife. Which is the last thing she wants to do, since she gets enough of being the disciplinarian with their kids. And after the kids have been coaxed, cajoled, and finally threatened into brushing their teeth, and wiggled and shaken and stirred into their pajamas, and read seemingly never-ending stories, and tucked in with both their stuffed and real animals, and _everyone,_ including aforementioned stuffed and real animals, has gotten their goodnight kisses-- and before Punkie and Cat and Alfred and Minnie and Charlotte and Wally have settled down on Kara and Lena’s bed-- Lena normally needs a little something for herself before collapsing from complete exhaustion.

But tonight there’s something else, something very important that needs to be addressed.

“Kara,” Lena begins...

“I’m sorry,” Kara cuts her off, looking truly apologetic. “I shouldn’t have undermined your authority with the kids by taking Betty for ice cream. Even if you or Jack hadn’t found out. It was wrong of me and I won’t do it ag-- Lena, _why are you crying?”_

“All my coping mechanisms are leaving me,” Lena sobs. “My drinking, my self-righteous anger, my sense of myself as an autonomous person--”

“Oh,” whispers Kara, alarmed. “Do you want to have sex?”

Lena nearly falls off the bed in her haste to switch on the red sunlamps in the hallway and lock the bedroom door.

*****

She sighs after her fifth orgasm, which might have to last her until date night, and holds her wife closer. “Kara,” she sighs. “I know I complain a lot, and I meant it when I said that none of this is anything I would’ve thought I’d want. But I also meant it when I said I’m _happy._ I wouldn’t trade any of you for anything.”

“Not even Har--”

Lena gives her _the look,_ and Kara silences, but with a smirk.

Lena thinks of all the times their tortoiseshell cat with the unfortunate (for Lena) marking scratched her, ignored her, and peed on her shoes. Once while she was wearing them.

And then she thinks of how Cat was first in line to greet them each time they came home from the hospital. How gentle he always is with the kids. How he sits so patiently, a “guest” at Betty’s tea parties in his frock and bonnet, a “customer” in Jack’s Prohibition-era barbershop. (Until Lena stages a raid and breaks it up-- ”How many times have I said non-toxic markers are fine, but no scissors around the pets?”)

She thinks of those times she was up late pregnant with Jack and Betty, waiting for Kara to come home and worrying, and Cat leaned against her belly like he knew and he was sorry.

“Cat would be out on his ass in a _second_ if I thought I could get away with it.”

Kara hides a smirk in her pillow. “Shurrr,” comes the muffled response.

“Really.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Lena tickles Kara. Kara screams bloody murder and whacks Lena with the pillow.

They’re just getting into it, and Lena’s excited because another orgasm is forthcoming, because what else can a pillow fight devolve into except glorious, pulverizing, bitchin’ banging?

Apparently their kids have different ideas on what pillow fights turn into, as suddenly there’s the kind of banging Lena _doesn’t_ like on the door, and four different voices are howling in agony.

They scramble into the pajamas they’d strategically placed on the bed beforehand, and before Lena knows it she’s surrounded on all sides by love, in all its sticky, hairy, furry shapes and forms.

With Turtle sleeping peacefully in his cage.

“So,” whispers Kara, as she spoons Lena. “Betty and I were walking the dogs this afternoon? And we bumped into this nice foster mom and her pit bull? And Petunia and Wally really hit it off, and--”

Lena momentarily lets go of Jack and Betty so she can turn and face her wife, whom she loves, loves to pieces, but whom she is fantasizing about slowly strangling with a dog leash right now. “Kara. Is Petunia the dog’s real name? Or was that the name Betty gave her?”

Kara just gives her a nervous grin.

Lena sighs, and shuts her eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
